Road Types

Road Types

There are different types of public roads throughout the municipality, which are classified according to size and function as either Municipal public roads, declared arterial roads  and declared freeways.  Arterial roads and freeways are the responsibility of VicRoads.

Listed below are the different road types and who is responsible for them in terms of maintenance and improvement.

Municipal Roads

Municipal Roads (or Council roads) are the public suburban roads on which most residents live or access property.  Council is responsible for all maintenance, road safety and traffic measures on local roads in the municipality. New roads are being provided all the time as part of new sub-divisions.  Programs exist to manage traffic, parking and pedestrian movements to increase safety and improve the flow of traffic.

The Road Management Plan and the Register of Public Roads both describe a hierarchy of importance for Municipal Roads, based on traffic volume and function:

• “Link Roads” generally have the highest traffic volume and link other roads to arterial roads
• “Collector Roads” channel traffic to Link Roads from local access streets
• “Access Roads” and streets provide the direct access required for residential, commercial, industrial and farming properties where traffic volumes are relatively lower than Link and Collector Roads and direct access is the primary function of the road.

Declared Arterial Roads

Arterial Roads carry most of the traffic around the municipality and throughout the metropolitan area, and are sometimes called primary arterial or secondary arterial roads.  The arterial roads are the responsibility of VicRoads.

The Victorian State Government, through its road authority VicRoads, is responsible for all maintenance, road safety and traffic measures on all 'declared arterial roads' (formerly called main roads).  VicRoads is both the coordinating and responsible road authority for arterial roads.

To ensure that arterial roads within the City of Whittlesea are maintained and managed in accordance with local requirements, Council has contracted to carry out the routine maintenance of these roads.  VicRoads provides funding to Council for this work.

Arterial roads within the City of Whittlesea are:

• Childs Road, Mill Park/Lalor/Epping
• Cooper Street (west of Dalton Rd), Epping
• Craigieburn Road, Wollert
• Dalton Road, Epping/Lalor/Thomastown
• Donnybrook Road, Donnybrook/Woodstock
• Edgars Road, Lalor/Thomastown
• High Street, Epping/Lalor/Thomastown
• Keon Parade/Mahoneys Road,Thomastown
• McDonalds Road/Gorge Road, South Morang/Epping
• Plenty Road (north of Metropolitan Ring Road), Bundoora/ Whittlesea
• Settlement Road, Bundoora/Thomastown
• Wallan Road - (Merriang Road/Epping Road) Woodstock/Whittlesea
• Wallan – Whittlesea Road, Whittlesea
• Whittlesea - Yea Road, Whittlesea
• Yan Yean Road (awaiting formal approval), Doreen
• Bridge Inn Road (awaiting formal approval), Mernda/Doreen

Highways and Freeways

The Victorian State Government, through VicRoads, is responsible for all road safety and traffic measures on highways and freeways.

The City of Whittlesea is well connected to the Melbourne CBD, the airport and interstate by a series of highways and freeways.

Metropolitan Ring Road

The Metropolitan Ring Road, better known as the 'Ring Road’, was constructed in stages over more than 10 years. The road was built from the western side of Melbourne to meet with the Hume Highway but extends to Greensborough.

A table of the road sections and their opening dates is shown below.

• Greensborough to Plenty Road, April 1994
• Plenty Road to Dalton Road, November 1996
• Dalton Road to Edgars Road, May 1999
• Edgars Road to the Hume Highway, August 1999

Today, VicRoads estimates the time to travel from the start of the Ring Road in Greensborough to the Hume Highway is only nine minutes, while the travel time from Greensborough to the Westgate Freeway in Altona is approximately 27 minutes.

Hume Freeway (F2 Craigieburn Bypass)

North from the Metropolitan Ring Road, the Hume Freeway is being constructed to link back to the Hume Highway north of Craigieburn.  The first section to Cooper Street is open and remanning sections are expected to be completed in early 2006.

The Hume Freeway provides vital access to the developing areas of the City of Whittlesea with interchanges at Cooper Street, O’Herns Road (planned) and Craigieburn Road.

The Freeway Network & Travel Times

The VicRoads website provides an interactive view of the freeway network, as well as current travel times. Visit the website via the RELATED LINKS box to the right of this page.